


Everything Changes

by potentiality_26



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Fix-It, M/M, Not Trailer Compliant, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 03:24:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Usually when Eggsy got hurt it was Roxy he found at his side when he woke- but sometimes someone Eggsy didn't know from the medical or handler division would be there waiting to brief him instead.  But when Eggsy squinted and looked hard, unfamiliarity turned out not to be the problem with the figure he saw.The problem was that he was looking at Harry Hart.Eggsy wakes up after a mission in a very different life.





	Everything Changes

**Author's Note:**

> Like it says in the tags, this is one of the (probably many) stories I'm going to post that isn't compliant with the Kingsman 2 trailer. This is a pretty old premise and I know it's been done before, but hopefully I put an interesting spin on it. 
> 
> Not Brit-picked.

Eggsy woke slowly.  He could hear the footsteps of nurses and orderlies, the reassuring beep of monitors, the soft buzz of various other machines.  The smell was antiseptic, familiar.  He knew he was safely in the Kingsman medical wing, so he took his time opening his eyes- and then he just gazed into the general white until a dark shape materialized to his right and coalesced into someone in a perfect suit.

All fine, all expected.  Usually when Eggsy got hurt it was Roxy he found at his side when he woke- but sometimes someone Eggsy didn't know from the medical or handler division would be there waiting to brief him instead.  But when Eggsy squinted and looked hard, unfamiliarity turned out not to be the problem with the figure he saw.

The problem was that he was looking at Harry Hart.

“Holy shit,” Eggsy said.  His tongue was sluggish in his mouth, so between thought and speech he actually had several moments to drink in the sight of a dead man sitting beside him reading a newspaper. 

Harry was in profile, and he looked… good.  Well- it was _Harry_ , so of course he looked good.  Eggsy’s brain rarely saw fit to furnish him with a version of Harry looking otherwise- except in the middle of the night, after a particularly rough mission, when he was sometimes treated to a front row seat of Harry getting shot in the head again.  Only in the version in his dreams, Eggsy was right there watching- paralyzed until Harry had already fallen and he was able to hold him in his arms and stare at his ruined face while he died. 

And yeah, there was been a while there when every man with long legs and broad shoulders and a certain sheen to his hair had looked like Harry to Eggsy- that was what happened when you didn’t have a body to bury- but when Eggsy looked at Harry sitting there large as life despite being utterly to the contrary and thought _guess I’ve cracked_ , it was a surprise, really.

Eggsy had been doing pretty well.  He had spent a lot of time with Igraine, the official Kingsman therapist, and told her that, as much sleep as he still lost over the events leading up to V-Day- and V-Day itself- watching Harry die remained the worst part.  He had even admitted to feelings for Harry that were more than gratitude.  And while watching a man he had been halfway in love with get murdered had left its share of scars, Eggsy had been handling it.  He did his job and he did it well, he took care of his family, and if one thing he didn’t do was so much as think about dating no one noticed because Kingsman agents didn’t date a whole lot anyway.  So though Eggsy wasn’t exactly sorry to see Harry- God, but he’d missed just looking at him- he was more annoyed than anything.

Surely his breakdown could have announced itself beforehand.  That would have been the polite thing to do.       

Harry caught Eggsy's eye and turned, smiling, and that was... different.  He had a network of scars near one temple.  They were faded but still impossible to miss, and once Eggsy had noticed that, it was easy to notice all the other things that were odd as well.  Harry’s hair had more grey in it than he remembered, and there were more pronounced wrinkles around his eyes and mouth  He was still fit as hell, but the changes were undeniable.  “Hello there,” he said, leaning close.

“What happened?” Eggsy asked, desperate for something to say that would sound reasonably intelligent while he tried to work out what the hell he was really looking at.  Someone else his addled brain had convinced itself was Harry?  An empty chair?       

Harry’s lips flattened out.  “I was hoping you could tell me.  You were on a mission with Kay, do you remember?”

“Sure,” Eggsy said, because that much- at least- he was aware of.  Eggsy had mainly been working alone- with the effects of V-Day still being felt even months later, most of the knights did- but he had sprained his ankle and only just been put back on active duty, so Merlin had been sending him in as backup for the others until he was on the level again.  He had been helping to clear out a laboratory Kay had found- there had been some genuine supervillain shit going on in there, you wouldn’t believe- when something... went off.  All Eggsy remembered of it was a bright light and then nothing before waking up here. 

“When she found you," Harry was saying, "you were unconscious.  There was no sign of why.”

Eggsy mentioned the device and the bright light halfheartedly, focused mostly on the question of what the Harry hallucination was talking about.  The last time Eggsy checked, Kay’s pronoun of choice was ‘he’.

Harry nodded and patted his hand.  “We’ll figure out what happened.”   

“Right,” Eggsy said, just slightly bitterly.  He'd forgotten how good it felt to have Harry with him- Harry who always knew what to do next, who didn’t have to wrack his brain for it the way Eggsy still sometimes did.  He’d even forgotten what it was like to have Harry say he would fix everything and believe it- because he did believe it, all the way up until he remembered that Harry wasn’t really there.  Harry was dead. 

“How do you feel otherwise?” Harry was asking.

“Not bad,” Eggsy replied- because he felt all right, for someone who had apparently lost his mind.

“Well.”  Harry let out a breath, stood, and bent over Eggsy to kiss him on the forehead.  And it _hurt_ , how warm and real Harry’s lips felt smoothing over his skin, even though Harry had never once touched Eggsy like that while he was alive, never once shown any sign that he wanted to.  “Merlin will be here to look in on you soon."  Harry straightened up.  "I should go.”    

And Eggsy damn well wasn’t going to beg a hallucination to stay with him, but then his body did the begging for him.  The moment Harry began to draw away, Eggsy’s heartbeat started going haywire, and the monitor- like a traitor- proclaimed it for everyone to hear.

Harry stopped.  “Or I could stay,” he said slowly.  He sat down on the side of Eggsy’s bed.  “Are you sure you’re all right?”  He was actively gripping Eggsy’s arm now.

“Don’t know,” Eggsy admitted.

“We’ll find out what's happened to you, I promise.”

“Sounds nice.”

Harry smiled the strangest smile, tight and almost scared.  He lifted their entwined fingers and kissed the back of Eggsy’s hand.  Now that he thought about it, Eggsy supposed there was no reason why a hallucination of Harry _shouldn’t_ act this way.  This Harry came from his mind- so he knew all the little fantasies Eggsy had shoved back into the furthest recesses of it because they were no longer possible.  But he did wonder what he had done so very wrong in his life to deserve having them played out for him in living color like this, and he was torn about whether he should savor it or beg Merlin to make it go away with drugs.

Merlin himself swept in before Eggsy could make up his mind.  He nodded to Eggsy and then turned, narrowing his eyes.  "Harry," he said.  “Don’t you have work to do?  Hands off my patient.” 

“He wanted me to stay,” Harry insisted.

Eggsy managed to not say _holy shit_ again.  He also managed to not say _wait, why are you talking to somebody who isn't really there?_   Evidently Merlin not only saw Harry too, he thought there was nothing odd in it.  Eggsy kept his mouth firmly shut as Merlin performed a general examination, and he tried to piece together what he knew.

He knew that Harry was dead.  He knew little so well, and yet... And yet here Harry was- older, somehow, but very present and very… affectionate. 

He knew that Merlin was talking to Harry anyway.

He knew that- once he looked carefully- Merlin seemed older too.  It was less noticeable because of the whole baldness thing, but his face was thinner and his wrinkles were more pronounced. 

“So,” Merlin said when he was finished.  “There was a flash of light, and that’s all you can remember?”

Eggsy considered his answer.  On the one hand, the mission Eggsy remembered going on didn't seem all that much like the one Merlin and Harry were talking about.  On the other… well, there wasn’t really another hand, there was just the fact that Eggsy wasn’t sure what would happen to this strange world he had opened his eyes into- a dream world, he supposed it had to be- if he started to question it, and he was big enough to admit that if he was dreaming himself into a Kingsman that still had Harry in it, he didn’t want to stop.

He was saved from having to make a decision when a woman he didn't know breezed into the medical bay.  She had extremely curly hair and enormous dark eyes, and her Kingsman suit was immaculately tailored.  She jerked her chin at Harry.  “Arthur,” she said.

“Kay,” he replied.

She came to a stop at the foot of Eggsy’s bed and tweaked his toe.  “Hey,” she said.  “Had me worried, you did.  I was clocking out, wanted to make sure you wasn’t dead first.”  

“I’m all right,” Eggsy told her, staring.

She- Kay?- grunted in a disbelieving fashion and turned her attention to Harry instead.  “You’ll tell me if there’s any trouble?” 

“You will be my second call,” Harry replied.

“You’re the governor,” she said.  She saluted Eggsy and made her way out the same way she had arrived.  She carried herself in a way that Eggsy had seen a lot of growing up- tough, aware, and reactive- and the way she talked... the way she talked like _him..._   Eggsy loved the idea of her as a Kingsman.  But-

Merlin said, “You two might as well head out too.”

“What?” Eggsy said.

“What?” Harry said.

Merlin rolled his eyes.  “I can find nothing physically wrong with you,” he told Eggsy.  “And unless you're keeping something serious to yourself there’s very little I can do to investigate further.  I wouldn’t advise you to go out into city, but you have rooms here.  Use them.”  He turned his attention to Harry.  “And you do hardly any paperwork as it is, and you’ll get nothing whatsoever done if you’re worried about Galahad and whether he will or won’t start showing symptoms of something.  So.  I’m releasing you-” he pointed to Eggsy- “And I’m giving you-” he pointed to Harry- “permission to take yourself off.  Do so.”

And Eggsy, God help him, almost did.  It seemed to him entirely likely that this was all just a dream- a very strange dream, but one he wanted to hold onto for as long as he could.  But there was... hope creeping in on him.  Hope that he was wrong somehow, that everything he was seeing was real.  It was that hope that made Eggsy speak up.  “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I was just gonna run with this, but I can’t.”

Merlin lifted an eyebrow.  "Run with what?"

“This ain’t right.  I was on a mission with Kay, yeah- but that wasn’t Kay, not the one I've always known.  I was helping him pack up the shit this scientist had made and something blew up in my face- and now I’m here.  And suddenly Kay is a whole other person, you look different, Merlin, and Harry- Harry’s here when he- when he can’t be, right?  Because he's dead."  Eggsy made himself look at Harry for the first time since he admitted the truth.  "You're dead.”    

“Dead,” Harry repeated.  “How?”

“How,” Eggsy snorted.  “Valentine shot you in the face, that’s how.  Don’t remember that?”

“I do, in fact,” Harry replied.  “Very vividly.  But I didn’t die.  You found me and you brought me home.”    

Eggsy hated the noise he made, but he couldn’t help himself- and when Harry’s face contorted and he pulled Eggsy into his arms Eggsy couldn’t make up his mind to be sorry for it.  Because Harry felt so solid, his shoulders warm and firm under Eggsy’s hands, and he held Eggsy back just as fiercely, one hand coming up to cradle his cheek. 

“Oh, my darling,” Harry murmured soothingly.  He kissed Eggsy’s hair a few times.  “I expect this is difficult, but that was ten years ago.”

Eggsy noticed a metallic coolness when Harry touched his face- a small band encircling Harry’s ring finger.  Eggsy looked at his own hands gripping Harry’s broad shoulders and saw that he wore a ring too.  A wedding band.  Eggsy didn’t say _Harry, did you marry me?_ He couldn’t bear to be wrong, and since all this would almost certainly turn out to be a dream anyway he couldn’t bear to be right either. 

He could already imagine waking up in the real Kingsman medical and having to tell Igraine when she did his next psych work up that he’d dreamed it was ten years in the future and Harry was alive and they were married.

She was going to love it.

Harry addressed Merlin over Eggsy’s head.  “Is it some kind of amnesia?” he asked.

Eggsy drew away from Harry enough to look at Merlin, who was frowning.  “Nothing we know about what happened would suggest that amnesia was a factor.  But it's difficult to imagine it's anything else."  Merlin pulled up a stool and started working furiously on his clipboard.  “Tell me more about the last thing you remember.”       

So Eggsy explained about the mission with Kay, the scientist and all of his devices, the bright light he had seen when one of them turned itself on.

Merlin looked thoughtful.  “It might be that being knocked unconscious simply effected your memory- or perhaps that device is somehow to blame."

Eggsy didn't know how he could possibly believe that this was just amnesia when it all felt like yesterday, but if it meant that everything he was seeing _was_ real... "Do you really think that's likely?" he asked.  It was a stupid question, of course- if this was a dream, Merlin wouldn't know what was actually going on any more than Eggsy did. 

"I think we need to consider all the possibilities."

"Right."  Eggsy sat back in the bed.  "So I'm stuck here after all, then?"

“Well, part of considering all the possibilities includes considering that you might not actually even be you, and this might be some kind of strange and ill-conceived infiltration attempt.  That said, all my tests have still come back clean- and I don’t see any reason why you can’t take a walk through the grounds and sleep in a real bed- as long as you don’t go near anything sensitive and everyone is extra vigilant.”

Eggsy took that in for a moment.  The fact that Merlin had brought up that possibility made it all the more tempting to think that maybe this was real after all.  Eggsy knew he was not an imposter.  So maybe he did have everything he hadn't allowed himself to want since Harry died.  Maybe he just didn't remember getting it.     

“Lancelot,” he blurted out suddenly.  Harry and Merlin both froze and stared at him.  Eggsy swallowed heavily and continued: “Lancelot is still Roxy Morton, isn’t she?”

“Of course,” Harry said.

“Can I see her?”  Eggsy swallowed again.  “I mean, if I’m going for a walk around the grounds or whatever, I think I’d like to go with her.”

Harry looked a little sad, then- but he nodded as if he understood why Eggsy might be more comfortable spending his time with someone else under the circumstances.  “I’ll see if I can find her,” he said.  He stood and kissed Eggsy’s forehead again, lingering a second longer than he had last time.  Eggsy strained for some sense of familiarity, some reason to believe that this was not only the second time Harry had ever touched him like that, that they really were right about his memory.  It felt nice, but it did not feel usual. 

From the way Harry briefly held his eyes, nodded once more as if to himself, and slipped away, he could sense that. 

For the first few moments after Harry was gone, Eggsy and Merlin simply regarded each other awkwardly.  Eggsy cleared his throat and finally picked something to say: “If you’re right about this being amnesia-”

Merlin made a face- the face of a man who did not like hearing the words _if_ and _you’re right_ in any conjunction at all.  “Yes?”

“What then?”

“Then nothing,” Merlin said with a shrug.  “You’ll remember eventually.”

“What if I don’t?  What if I never-” _remember making Harry fall in love with me?_   At least, Eggsy assumed that this Harry was in love with him or they wouldn’t have gotten married- and if this was real that was the most precious information in the world. 

"Then we'll figure something else out."  Merlin patted Eggsy's leg.  “Everything is going to be all right,” he promised.  “You'll see.  Now- let's get you up."

Eggsy stood with Merlin's help.  Then he changed out of his hospital gown and into civilian clothes that he had to admit looked like his.  They were exactly the sort of clothes he would have imagined himself wearing ten years on- more casual than Harry's had ever been, but more sedate than his own usual.  Eggsy couldn't say if that made it more likely that this was real, or less. 

He tried not to look too much at his own body.  He was heavier than he had been just that morning- what was to him just that morning, anyway- but more muscular too, and there were scars he didn't recognize.  He avoided the mirror, shy of looking at his face. 

By the time Roxy arrived he was dressed and walking around on only-slightly unsteady legs.  His body felt... unfamiliar somehow- not quite right- but he seemed healthy otherwise. 

And Roxy... she looked good. 

She had always looked good, of course, but the suit she was wearing now made her seem sterner and sharper than the one she had favored ten years ago- if, Eggsy reminded himself yet again, the last thing he remembered really was ten years ago.  Indeed, everything about her seemed sharper somehow.  She had always been capable, always been steely- but she had been so fresh-faced that people tended to underestimate her.  As the Lancelot Eggsy remembered, she had used that shamelessly.  Eggsy had a feeling that no one underestimated this Roxy, with her hair pulled back into a perfect French twist and her keen eyes taking everything in from beneath flawlessly groomed eyebrows.  It made Eggsy wish he could take her picture.  _Lancelot, ten years on_.  

However much colder she appeared, Roxy’s face still softened into a warm smile when she saw him.  “So,” she said.  “I gather you’re having some memory problems.”

“That’s what Merlin says.”      

“Well.”  Roxy let out a breath.  “Let’s get some fresh air.”

The grounds around the Kingsman manor looked more or less as Eggsy remembered- a tree might have been a bit taller than he remembered here, or a bush might have cropped up unexpectedly there, but for the most part they were familiar.  More familiar than almost anything else, including Roxy. 

She had a wary way of looking at him, out of the corner of her eye, like she didn’t really know what to do with him.  He couldn’t blame her for that.  He didn’t really know what to do with himself.

To break the awkward silence they were walking in, Eggsy said, “So are you allowed to talk to me?  You’re allowed to talk to me, right?”

“Arthur certainly didn’t say I couldn’t,” Roxy replied with a false ease that suggested there was more to it.

“Rox, I may not be all here right now- but I know when you’re hiding something.”

She rolled her eyes heavenward.  “And that’s the problem with trying to treat a coworker like a mark.”  They came to a stop by a bench and Roxy sat down on it.  After a brief hesitation, Eggsy joined her.  “Arthur- Harry- is worried about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you can't remember the last ten years and nobody has any idea why, why do you think?  Although you’re by no stretch our only case of amnesia we don’t exactly have a policy on the subject.  He thinks we might as well tell you whatever you want to know- see if it jogs something.”  She put her hand over his and patted him gently.  “We’ll figure this out, Eggsy.  We will.”

“Okay,” he said faintly.  His mind raced ahead of him.   _Although you’re by no stretch our only case of amnesia we don’t exactly have a policy on the subject,_ Roxy had just said.  “Who else had amnesia?"  He couldn't think of anyone, but if ten years really had passed maybe everyone had had a turn.  

'Well," Roxy said.  "Harry did."  She gave a little laugh.  "I should've known we would end up talking about him.  You found him with amnesia in a hospital in Kentucky.  You had time off and you went there.  I’ve never known why then, why that place, but he was there.  And familiar things would jog his memory.  He remembered he was a Kingsman, remembered who both of us were in a general way.  He remembered things like how Merlin looked with hair or the exact details of one mission he went on six years ago or something.  But not everything came back, and it was all so hit or miss that none of us knew what to expect.  Would it happen slowly, or all in a flash, or would it never happen at all?  That went on for at least a year." 

“And after that we...”  Eggsy’s mouth was dry.  Even after the conversation, the rings, the whole way Harry was with him, Eggsy couldn’t believe they were actually together.  “We- uh- started dating?  Harry and me?”

“Actually it was a while before that.  Maybe six months after you found him?”   

Eggsy scowled.

Roxy laughed out loud.  Her smile took years off her face.  “Of course that upsets you.  You know- even before you found him again, I knew how you felt about him.”

“I remember _that_ ,” Eggsy said.  He hadn't told Roxy- not that he remembered, anyway- but he had probably been painfully obvious about it all the same.   

She sat back on the bench, still smiling broadly.  ”Well, it only got worse after we got him back.  All the dramatic sighing was driving me crazy, especially since anyone with eyes could see that he felt the same way about you- but you wanted him to have all of his memories back before you two started anything.”

“Well of course,” Eggsy said, a little indignant at her tone, which made that sound like it was a silly thing to want.  No matter how obvious Harry’s feelings seemed, there was no way Eggsy was going to get together with him until Harry remembered everything, not when there was the smallest chance that Harry would remember something later and change his mind about being with Eggsy at all.  Their friendship wouldn’t survive that.  Eggsy wasn’t sure _he_ would survive that.   

“So for a while you two just pined disgustingly and did absolutely nothing about it, until you got yourself pinned down on a mission.  Merlin had Harry handling agents- especially you- while everyone was still working out whether he was ever going to be able to go back into the field, and you weren’t sure you were going to make it out alive, and that was when Harry- right there in the control room for God and everybody to hear- said, ‘I may not know everything, Eggsy Unwin, but I know that if you die without my ever having kissed you I will never forgive you.’  And I guess you must have thought that was sufficiently romantic- because after that you two still took it painfully slow, but there were no more doubts about where things were really headed." 

“And we… got married.”

“Oh yeah- a couple of years after Harry really did remember everything.  I was the best man.”  Roxy sounded very pleased about that.  “Merlin was the other best man.” 

“Right,” Eggsy managed.  He could just picture it, and it _hurt_. 

She laid a hand on his knee.  “I know this must be jarring for you.  It’s not exactly easy for the rest of us.  But as you can see, it’s not without precedent.  You and Harry have seen each other through worse, trust me.  You two are pretty much _the_ power couple. Now- it’s getting late."  She squeezed his leg lightly.  "Get some rest, all right?  Things will look better in the morning."

As Roxy walked him to the rooms in the manor that he and Harry apparently shared, Eggsy did try to believe her.  He tried to imagine that he would wake up in the morning and this would be his life.  That a world where Harry was alive, loved him, had married him, would feel _right_. 

But as soon as she had hugged him and left, Eggsy remembered that it was a lot more likely that this Roxy was just another figment of his imagination.  It made him glad Merlin hadn't decided to send him home or anything.  Looking at Roxy and that other Kay had been hard enough- seeing the house he lived in with Harry, or even worse seeing his Mum older and hopefully happier, and his little sister grown?  There were some things he wasn't sure he could bear to see, not yet if he'd lost his memory, and not ever if this was just some torturous dream.   

_Or maybe just torture_ , he thought, hearing a light knock on the door.

“Yeah?” he called out quietly. 

The door opened slowly, and Harry lingered in the doorway with bags in his hands.  “I got some takeaway,” he said.  “I didn’t know if you would want to be alone.”  

And the reason Eggsy had wanted to be with Roxy instead of Harry- because looking at her didn’t _hurt_ the way looking at Harry did- was still valid, but whether this was real by some miracle or not Eggsy couldn’t ask Harry to leave.  He didn’t know what these memories would do to him if he woke again in a world where Harry was dead, but he did know that if he had wasted a single moment with Harry- even an imagined one- he would never forgive himself for it. 

“No,” he said.  “I don’t want to be alone.”

Harry smiled and came in.

"Is this being extra vigilant?" Eggsy asked as Harry sat down beside him on the couch.  Eggsy knew he wasn't a threat, but he thought Harry ought to be more careful all the same.  At least Roxy had looked healthily suspicious of him.

"Merlin just said that to scare you," Harry said.  He patted Eggsy's knee lightly before he started to sort through cartons.  "We know who you are, even if you're not so sure."

"Right," Eggsy said. 

He barely tasted the food Harry had brought him.  He barely spoke.  He just... took Harry in.  The way he held himself, the crispness of his voice, the smell of his cologne- all were familiar, never quite forgotten no matter how many months Harry had been dead.  And the things that were unfamiliar- the scars, the lines around his eyes and down his throat that really showed his age, the grey of his hair- they were all so very precious to Eggsy because Harry was alive to get older at all.  

Harry seemed to pick up on Eggsy’s reluctance to make conversation, so he talked instead.  He told Eggsy stories- some Eggsy remembered hearing bits and pieces of during that twenty-four hours with Harry, some it was hard to believe he had the imagination to make up- as they ate their dinner.

What really choked Eggsy up was the fondness with which Harry looked at him.  It was hard to believe that he had the imagination to make that up either- but harder still to believe that he hadn't imagined it.  That Harry Hart could have fallen in love with _him_.     

“I just have trouble buying it, you know,” Eggsy said.  It just came out of his mouth, cutting Harry off in the middle of a sentence.  “Us.”

Harry paused, eying him uncertainly.  “Why is that?”

“Because it’s _you_ , innit?”

Harry swallowed and looked down.  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Eggsy set his carton on the table, committed now.  “I mean that I don’t understand what _you_ could’ve really wanted with _me_.”

Harry, who had been sitting on the couch at Eggsy’s side, eased closer to him with painfully earnest eyes and took his hand.  “Eggsy, I have always wanted you.  Even when you walked out of that police station, even when you found me in that hospital, even when I had no idea who you were, I wanted you.  And I have fallen in love with you twice over now, so don’t ever doubt how I feel about you.” 

Eggsy’s gut turned over with longing for that to be true, for this to be real. 

Harry brushed light fingers over Eggsy’s temple and cheek.  “You’ll see.  You’ll get some rest, and in the morning we’ll figure this out.”  

Eggsy settled against him, head on Harry's chest.  He was exhausted, suddenly.  "That's what Merlin and Roxy both said.  But what if you're wrong?"

"What if things are worse in the morning?"

"No, what if..."  Eggsy bit his lip.  "What if it's not amnesia?"  Eggsy couldn't bring himself to voice his worries about whether this was even real, not yet, so he joked instead, "What if it was like a... time travel device?  You know- that somehow put my mind into my body, but ten years in the future?"

"Stranger things have happened," Harry said.  He chuckled, so at least Eggsy had succeeded in lightening his mood.

Eggsy's own plummeted.  If he had thought hoping Merlin had been right about amnesia was painful, hoping he himself was right about time travel was even worse, because that would have all the promise of knowing he had gotten Harry back, gotten to keep him, without the pain of having forgotten _how_.   

Harry squeezed his hand lightly, looking as though he could guess some of what Eggsy had just been thinking.  "That really isn't out of the realm of possibility."

“It sounds like science fiction.”

"You'll have said that about other things to me before you get here, if it is some kind of time travel.”  Harry kissed Eggsy's hand again, proving his point pretty handily.  That felt like science fiction to Eggsy.  “It would actually explain a few things.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well.  You never were able to explain why you went to that hospital that day.  So.  Maybe you will wake up again ten years ago.  And if you do, you can come and find me.  I will be there.  And I will always fall for you.  Promise me you will.”

“I promise.”  Eggsy couldn’t stop himself.  He cuddled closer to Harry, wishing he could burrow under his skin.  He wanted Harry to be right, one way or another.  But...  “What if it’s not time travel either, though?” he finally asked, his face buried in Harry’s chest.  “What if... what if you aren’t real?”

“Well, I find that difficult to believe, for obvious reasons.  But if so... I suppose you’ll just have to go on.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Eggsy whispered.

Harry reached out with his free hand, turning Eggsy's face toward him.  “What can I do?  How can I help?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know...”  Harry’s fingertips danced lightly across his cheek.  Harry's face pressed so close to his.  “I don’t think anyone would call it infidelity.  If we…”

It took Eggsy a moment to realize what Harry was offering.  And Christ it was tempting, the thought of those gentle hands touching him all over.  But Eggsy knew that he wanted a Harry who felt like his, or none at all.  “No,” he said finally.  “Just... just hold me for a while, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said, and he sounded just a tiny bit relieved.  He held Eggsy until he dozed off. 

*   *   *

Eggsy woke up in the medical branch again. 

Even before he looked around, he knew- and when he did look around, when he saw Roxy not too far from his bed talking to Kay, he had confirmation.  That was the Kay Eggsy had always known, the one who- if Eggsy really had seen the future- would be dead or retired in ten years. 

His face was pinched, worried, but it lightened when he caught Eggsy watching him.  He nudged Roxy and pointed in Eggsy’s direction.  "Look who's awake," he said.

Roxy caught Eggsy's eye and beamed.  “You gave us quite a scare.”

It took Eggsy two tries to actually speak to her.  He kept thinking _she looks so young_ even though she was as much his age as ever.  “What happened?” 

“We aren’t quite sure,” Kay told him.  “I found you collapsed in that lab, but when I brought you in Merlin and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong with you."

Roxy took over.  “It was like you were just... asleep, and we couldn’t wake you up.”

_I didn’t want you to wake me up_ , Eggsy thought.  What if it wasn’t real?  What if it was just a strange dream after all?  Eggsy remembered Harry swearing it was real- swearing _he_ was real- up and down, and he wanted to go on believing it for just a little longer.  He was almost tempted to break his promise to try to find Harry just so he wouldn't have to face the possibility that it wasn’t true. 

Almost.

Roxy came to the foot of the bed and tweaked his toe the same way Kay- the Kay in his dream, that was- had, and Eggsy’s throat felt tight at the loss of someone he didn't even really know.  “Are you okay?” she asked.

Merlin came in before before he could say anything further, and she and Kay took their leave so Merlin could examine him in private.  That was lucky, Eggsy thought.  He had no idea how he would have answered Roxy's question.

"How are you feeling?" Merlin asked.

_Ah._ "All right, I guess," Eggsy finally managed to say.

Merlin looked skeptical.

"But I might... need some time off."

Despite the fact that Eggsy had never asked for time off before, Merlin didn’t question it.  He must have been able to see something in Eggsy’s eyes that told him it was absolutely necessary.  “Take a week,” Merlin said.        

“Thank you,” Eggsy replied, trying not to sound too pathetically grateful.  

Whether he really found Harry in Kentucky or not, he was going to need the time. 

*   *   *

“Are you a relative?"

Eggsy blinked at the woman seated behind the nurse's desk.  As soon as he arrived in Kentucky, Eggsy had gone straight to the hospital Harry- if it had really been Harry- had told him about, and then described him to the people who worked there.  In all of it, Eggsy had never completely let himself think that he might actually find Harry.  His memories of that other Kingsman were getting fuzzier in his mind, and he felt like he was running on fumes.  He hardly had a story prepared.  He heard himself blurt out, "I'm his nephew."

The woman’s face softened into a look of profound sympathy, and she summoned another nurse who looked at Eggsy the same way.  “We’re so sorry about the confusion,” she was saying as she steered Eggsy down a hall.  “He had no identification, and we had no idea who he was.”

“It’s okay,” Eggsy said, slowly warming up to the lie.  “I’ve just been going to different hospitals and trying my luck.  I can’t believe it finally happened.”

“I can tell,” she told him gently.  She stopped him at the door to a private room.  “You should know- he doesn’t remember much, and I mean much of anything.  The doctors think his memories will come back as he sees more things that are... familiar, but for the time being you’ll have to accept that he may not know who you are, all right?”

“All right.”

She opened the door, saying, “You have a visitor.”  And there indeed was Harry, eye bandaged and with half his hair shaved away, but awake and lucid and definitely the man Eggsy knew.  He cocked his head to one side when he saw Eggsy, but said nothing.

The nurse was talking again, but Eggsy was too busy looking at Harry to listen.  _It was real_ played counterpoint to _he’s alive_ in Eggsy's mind, and it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Eggsy finally heard the nurse say. 

“Uh,” Eggsy started when she was gone.  “I’m uh.  Gary.”   

Harry was silent for another moment, just taking Eggsy in.  Finally he cocked his head to one side.  “But everyone calls you Eggsy.  _I_ called you Eggsy.”

“That’s right,” Eggsy whispered.  “Do you remember me?”

“I remember bits and pieces, including you.”  He frowned.  “It’s not much.”

“It’s something.”

“It's enough for me to know-” Harry gave Eggsy a hard look that hid something Eggsy didn’t quite recognize, though he had a feeling he would like learning to- “that you are _not_ my nephew.”

Eggsy thought that one day his trip to the future- if it had truly been that- might fade from his memory altogether, or at least enough for him to worry again that it might not all work out between them.  But just then, clear as a bell, he could hear that other Harry saying, _I always wanted you.  Even when I had no idea who you were, I wanted you._ He laughed.  “No.  No- I’m not.  I’m definitely not."

Harry didn’t smile, but he certainly looked pleased.

Eggsy reached out and touched Harry's hand- the hand he was still sure would someday wear his ring.  "I’m here to take you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come see me on [tumblr](http://potentiality-26.tumblr.com/).


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